Aussies tired of Mahathir rudeness, Bill Hayden says

Aussies tired of Mahathir rudeness, Bill Hayden says

SYDNEY (AFP): Former Australian Governor-General Bill Hayden fueled the row he sparked last week with his charge that some Asian countries practice racism by repeating it and accusing Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad of rudeness.

Refusing to recant his earlier criticism, he also revealed he had personally advised former prime minister Paul Keating not to back down after calling the Malaysian prime minister a "recalcitrant" for boycotting the 1993 APEC summit.

Many Australians were "heartily tired of Dr. Mahathir running around being rude to Australia," wrongly accusing them of racism when Mahathir's own country had institutionalized racial discrimination with its Bumiputra policy, Hayden said.

"Why should Australia keep rolling over whenever Dr. Mahathir barks at us on the issue of race?"

Speaking on a prerecorded television program due to be screened later yesterday, the Queen's recently retired representative said his comments about Malaysia and its leader were wise and long overdue.

"Prime Minister Mahathir has been running round for many years bluffing the government of this country...when he couldn't get his own way, that we were racially discriminatory people," he said.

"He invoked the old and long dead white Australia policy. The fact is the countries in our region, or many of them, have inherent racial practices, in particular Malaysia. I think it does him good to be reminded of that."

Hayden touched off a storm last Wednesday by attacking Malaysians, Indonesians, Chinese and Japanese, saying: "If you want to see racism, racial intolerance, look at some of our neighbors, neighboring Asian countries."

Indonesians, he said, did not trust the Chinese, Mahathir administered a policy which institutionalized racial discrimination against the Chinese, the Indians of Malaysia were largely "dirt poor," Chinese were racial supremacists and Japanese were racial exclusivists.

Indonesia responded by calling Hayden irresponsible and Malaysian MP Ruhanie Ahmad described him as "unscrupulous." But Mahathir said he would not allow a "frustrated politician" to sour ties with the new Australian government.

Hayden, governor general for seven years, said yesterday that the relationship between Australia and Malaysia was only fragile because of the way Mahathir behaved when it suited him.

"What has happened is a douche of cold water has been thrown across certain of the leadership of Malaysia and that has been overdue," he said.

"What I have said has been said many times by the Far Eastern Economic Review and in fact in considerable analytical detail."

He said he had been shocked to discover, as foreign affairs minister in the Labor government under Prime Minister Bob Hawke, that Malaysians comprised 60 percent of foreigners who came to Australia to study under aid programs.